Monday, October 5, 2009

Big (Beautiful Blue) Sky Country


Locals have been telling us since we landed in Missoula that we just missed Indian summer, that it was 85 degrees only a few days ago. The weather has been less than perfect and I was beginning to despair that I’d never get a clear view of any of the magnificent peaks in Glacier.

Monday morning started out cloudbound and we decided to hibernate a little. Phil fixed pancakes and I patiently waited for local reports on the Weather Channel. Guess what, folks, as far as the Weather Channel is concerned Glacier National Park doesn’t have weather. Phil and I did a little writing and then headed down to the ranger station at Apgar Village to see about road conditions and such.

The ranger at the Visitor Center was such a loveable old coot he could have been made in a lab. He dished out advice and warnings with a heaping helping of quaint phrases that charmed the pants off of all us out-of-towners. He listened patiently as a woman reported she had seen mountain sheep (“The rollover kind?” the ranger asked, making “C” shapes around his temples to indicate horns. “They must be about ready to bump heads this time of year.”), elk, moose, and five bears. “I’ve been here many a summer and I’ve never seen elk around Two Medicine,” the ranger said, tarnishing the woman’s report just a smidge. “They say they’re there, but I’ve never seen them.”

Phil and I joined the convoy of wildlife peepers and headed over to Two Medicine. The difference between Route 2 yesterday with blustering snow and rain and today was as big as the Montana sky. No wind and white clouds dreamily drifting across the rocky peaks, revealing tantalizing glimpses now and then. I read some poems by Richard Hugo to Phil as we retraced yesterday’s route, passing a controlled brush fire on the way.

East Glacier is pretty hardscrabble and like West Glacier, everything is closed for the season. I insisted on stopping by Glacier Lodge, because I’d seen the lobby on a PBS show and wanted to see the huge atrium with gigantic lodgepole pines used as pillars. I never did get a good look at the inside, but the outside was impressive enough to make me want to take the train trip just to stay there. There was an inch or two of snow on the ground but things were warming up and icicles kept making ominous thumps as they slid from the green tin roof.

The parking lot at Two Medicine Lake had a few cars in it, which reassured me a little. If I’m going to get attacked by a bear, I at least want to have some witnesses. (Just joking, in case any bears are reading this.) A few patches of blue were showing through as we set off for Paradise Point, an easy half-mile walk. Seeing people tracks instead of animal tracks gave me the confidence to keep going even though we crossed a few meadows that had “bear habitat” written all over them.

The bite of winter in the air, the crunch of snow under my feet, and the smell of evergreens made a perfect buildup to the view from shore of Two Medicine Lake. Sinopah Mountain, a behemoth pyramid whose granite face was made more rugged with a dusting of snow, looked like a mystical wizard’s castle surrounded by a ring of other jagged peaks. We talked to two young women from Michigan on a cross country trip who had heard a mountain lion (“like a blood curdling scream”) on a nearby trail just the day before.

Once I was back in the car, I was as eager as Phil to see anything animate on four legs, but no luck. There were some lovely views of Lower Two Medicine Lake on the way out. When we stopped for some photos, we could see that the clouds were moving away.

We stopped at a café (East Glacier Café?) for pie and coffee, and talked to the two young men behind the counter. The matchmaker in me thought they would make perfect double date material for the women we’d met earlier. One young man said we’d seen black bears and grizzly bears, elk, moose, mountain sheep and even a wolverine, but never close up.

By the time we started back to West Glacier, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Vista after vista of jagged rocky peaks would come into view, and finally I got a feel for why some people are so crazy about Glacier National Park. The peaks seem to align themselves like a three-dimensional fan creating a variety of breath-taking arrangements depending on what angle you’re viewing them from. Right now, I’m going to have another look out of the front window of the cabin to take in the awesome panorama one more time before the sun goes down, and then a ham omelette for supper.

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